Outer Minds Interview: "Everyone is such a unique little white shitty snowflake these days, myself included."

[Note:  The Leotards are no longer on the bill for the Outer Minds show at the Replay because, well, they are unpredictable and shit.  But we're still leaving in some stuff about the Leotards in this interview]

Well, readers, we finally found an interview subject who makes more dick jokes than Chip!  Chicago's Outer Minds are bringing their psychedelic/garage rock to the Replay on Wednesday, July 10, and they are horny and half-insane from their recent hard touring and ready for whatever madness the night has in store.  Check out their album Southpaw via Bandcamp and get prepared.  Here's our chat with Outer Minds' Zach.  Enjoy!  It's mostly about masturbation and drugs, but there's also some talk about poetry for you sensitive types.

 
Chip:   Your Bandcamp descriptions prominently list the term “psychedelic” and I could immediately hear that influence as soon as I clicked the first song “Always In My Head.”  What do you think is the perfect combination of alcohol and drugs to fully “get” an Outer Minds performance.

Zach: Depends on how much rubber cement you can steal from your high school art class. Viagra and Nyquil works great: make sure you squeeze out a good jizz blast before going for that mixture. I would imagine whatever was the cause of Whitney Houston's death bath would be a pretty good buzz.  There was a gravy boat in the bathtub she died in, so perhaps I've been overlooking gravy as a good high.

Richard:  “Footsteps II” is just full of all kinds of interesting noises, isn’t it?  Tell us about the two “Footsteps” songs on the album.  If you had to pompously describe the themes in a Pitchfork-style blurb, what would you say about those two tunes and what numerical verdict do you think Pitchfork would bestow?

Zach: When I hear "Footsteps II" I hear the distant wailings of the Middle East. Hummous and shit like that.  I spent weeks as a social anthropologist in India and I know so much about that area now. My parents bought me a timeshare in India so I could live like the indigenous people there. I'm very worldly. Pardon me, I'm currently adjusting my free range wooden bow-tie. Alright I'm good now. Anyways, if I was to give this song a rating I would say 69 out of 420 [makes fart noise]. 

Chip:  [laughs].

Chip:   There’s plenty of organ to be heard in your tunes, and when I think “psych” and “organ,” I can’t help thinking of The Doors.  So what’s your take on the Doors and that old Lizard King Morrison?  Was he a genius or, as Lester Bangs says in Almost Famous, a "drunken buffoon posing a poet."

Zach:  When I think of "organ" I wanna pull my pud. I got jerking it on my brain after 4 weeks of touring. Need to drop some seed. 

Chip:  I jerked off before this interview.  Man,  I can't believe you guys are so busy you don't have time to beat off.  Rock and roll is harder than I thought.  Sorry, go ahead.   What about Morrison?

Zach:  Jim Morrison "rode the snake to the lake, the ancient lake." What more do you want from poetry dude?  It rhymes, right? Ray Manzarek was a rad dude, the tone of Jim Morrison's voice was cool, the guitars and drums were cool, the songs were cool at times....until they started using horns. The lyrics remind me of the time I was dating a poetry major and she brought me to what I thought was a house party. It ended up being a group of 15-20 poetry nerds reading their short stories and poems to each other. I, however, was drinking all of their booze and sitting on the couch playing with the cat that was there. Well, I got annoyed and drunk enough that I pulled my ball out my zipper and screamed "I sat in gum." I was the only person who laughed. That girl I was dating stopped talking to me and she moved to the west coast somewhere. 

Chip:  "OhMyGod I'm trying that prank!"

Richard:  Let's keep thing vulgar, since that seems to be the tone we've established here.  So your opener in Lawrence will be our friends in The Leotards.  They’re absolute perverts and pretty much every song they sing (or scream) has "fuck" or "cock" in the title and there’s probably a 60% chance the show will be shut down for public obscenity before you all even get to play.  If that happens, how will you spend the rest of your evening?

Zach:  Hopefully the Mouthbreathers dudes will be there and we'll just get into some shit. Or I'll find a nook to go spank a wad out. Or perhaps end up in a cemetery defiling local tombstones with spray paintings of dicks and pot leafs. Either or, I'm gonna have to toss a good one out the dick at some point. 

Chip:  I think the alley behind the Replay is probably fairly quiet on a Wednesday, though I've never masturbated there yet.  Now let's talk about what kind of audience you draw.  Since your music straddles a couple of genres, it seems like you might attract both hippies and hipsters?  Which do you prefer and why?  And what kind of crowd tends to show up at Outer Minds shows?

Zach:  Hippies like to give you drugs and hipsters buy records. I really don't know what designates a hipster anymore. Everyone is such a unique little white shitty snowflake these days, myself included. I like people that don't take pictures with their cellphones instead of enjoying the real time shit that's in front of their fucking face. Why enjoy the shit you're at when you can enjoy a blurry image later?  We get a pretty vast crowd at our shows. I just like people that are into shit for the right reasons, not because they were told to like some shit. I also like people who talk about religion and politics when I'm high or drunk or Hiiiigh. That's not retarded at all!  Titties are highly encouraged and, fuck it, a few swinging dicks never hurt anybody. If you buy me a drink after I play, we'll be friends for life. Also, can I sleep on your floor after the show? We need a place to stay. 

Richard:  You can probably crash with The Leotards.  And they tend to have pretty good drugs.